New York Post

LAW BIG DEFIES DeS ‘AX’ Feuding in Florida

- By SELIM ALGAR

The Florida state attorney suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis insisted Friday that he still has a job — but the Republican governor’s office said he can’t even get into his old office.

Andrew Warren, who served as Hillsborou­gh County’s top prosecutor until DeSantis (upper inset) announced the ouster Thursday, insisted to

CBS he was still on the job. “He does not have the authority to suspend me,” War- ren (lower inset) told the network, adding that “the people elected me to serve in this position, and

I am going to continue doing it to keep our neighborho­ods safe.”

Warren asserted that the move was “unconstitu­tional” and refused to recognize its legitimacy. Those comments drew a Twitter rebuke Friday from DeSantis spokespers­on Christina Pushaw, who said Warren was being “delusional.”

“Andrew Warren tells the media that he is still the state attorney because he identifies as a state attorney,” she wrote. “Sorry, but that doesn’t fly here. In Florida we live in the real world. His badge won’t even work to access his former office today.”

DeSantis said he removed Warren because he wasn’t prosecutin­g serious crimes and had pledged to ignore current or future restrictio­ns on abortion or gender-reassignme­nt surgeries on minors.

“We are not going to allow the pathogen that’s been around the country of ignoring the law, we are not going to allow that to get a foothold here in the state of Florida,” the governor said Thursday. “We are going to make sure our laws are enforced and no individual prosecutor puts himself above the law.”

Hillsborou­gh County Sheriff Chad Chronister backed the suspension, asserting that local law enforcemen­t had grown frustrated with what they viewed as Warren’s prosecutor­ial leniency.

Warren has ripped his removal, arguing that his office has not handled any cases related to abortion or gender-reassignme­nt surgeries and that he was being punished for hypothetic­al misconduct.

DeSantis has repeatedly blasted progressiv­e DAs in cities like New York and Los Angeles, arguing that they’ve allowed crime to spiral.

Warren was scrubbed from the state attorney’s website shortly after his suspension as DeSantis appointed Susan Lopez to take his place.

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